EDSD 2029 PA LL&SD Booklet

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EDSD 2029 The Songs Of PETE ATKIN&CLIVE JAMES

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DISC ONE PA: By the time I came to make this album in the Project co-ordination – Val Jennings summer of 1974, Clive was becoming much more CD package – Jools at Mac Concept Pete Atkin’s albums on the Secret Drinker famous for things other than his lyric-writing, CD mastering – Alchemy Edsel label: RCA LPLI 5062, 1974 mainly for presenting Granada TV’s Cinema Ephemera courtesy of the collections of Beware Of The Beautiful Stranger…plus programme, and then for writing his revolutionary Pete Atkin and Clive James [EDSS 1029] TV column in the Observer newspaper. We were CD front cover photo – Fay Godwin Driving Through Mythical America…plus back on the friendly, familiar ground of Morgan Strapline photo – Sophie Baker [EDSS 1030] Studios in beautiful downtown Willesden, London Huge thanks – Pete Atkin, Clive James, Steve A King At Nightfall + The Road Of Silk NW10, in the ultrasafe hands of Roger Quested, Birkill and Caroline Cook [2 CD] [EDSD 2028] for whom the experience of engineering my Secret Drinker…plus + Live Libel For everything (and we mean everything) relating albums would cause him to give up hands-on [2 CD] [EDSD 2029] studio work in order to develop what’s generally to Pete Atkin’s works, visit www.peteatkin.com, acknowledged to be just about the best but make sure you’ve got plenty of time to spend! Visit www.demonmusicgroup.co.uk for the monitoring system anyone’s ever come across. Then of course, you’ll want to visit Edsel catalogue and the many other fine labels www.clivejames.com that make up the Demon Music Group. CJ: Pete and I had an ambition to write songs that would break loose and live by themselves, and I suppose Secret Drinker shows that ambition reaching its apex, or its first apex anyway. Some of the songs on this album were, I think, among the most assured things we did, but it was steadily becoming harder to ignore the likelihood that life was going to get tougher the more we were confirmed in our role of appealing Lyrics – Clive James to a minority audience. The music business in Music – Pete Atkin those days was about the majority audience. It Produced and arranged by Pete Atkin still is, but the minority now has a better chance Original sound recordings Engineered by Roger Quested of finding the product. Even for the time, Pete’s made by Sony Music Recorded at Morgan Studios, Willesden, London record companies did an unusually thorough job Entertainment Ltd. of fumbling or forgetting every promise they Sony Music Entertainment NW10, June – July 1974 Ltd are the exclusive Art direction – Pat Doyle made, but they might not have had the answer even had they been competent. What we needed licensees for the UK. Design – Sutton Paddock Associates Disc 1 p 1974 Sony Music Photography – Fay Godwin was the web, but it hadn’t yet been invented. Entertainment (UK) Ltd. Pete Atkin and Clive James, January 2009 Disc 2 p 1975 Sony Music Pete Atkin – vocals, acoustic guitar, keyboards Entertainment (UK) Ltd. Paul Keogh – electric guitar © 2009 Demon Music Daryl Runswick – bass guitar, double bass Group Ltd. Marketed by Barry Desouza – drums Edsel, a division of the Frank Ricotti – percussion, vibraphone Demon Music Group Ltd, London, W1W 7TL. The Ronnie Ross – baritone saxophone Demon Music Group is a 2 2 entertain company. 31 Manufactured in the EU.

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Tocqueville had predicted, one of the When a snot-nosed little kid called Zimmerman consequences of a fully developed American Was seeking a new surname that would scan democracy was that the instinct for credulous Uncle Seabird filled his lungs with hash servility flourished along with every other instinct. And “Weberman” he muttered in a flash If I were writing the lyric now I would put Al Gore “There’s a new group down a hole you ought to into it. The lyric needs updating, which any hear” genuinely felt lyric should never need. The chief Said the telephone in Brian Epstein’s ear strike against the lyrics on Live Libel is that too “But let’s not haggle now about my fee many of the references are tied to their time, but I Tom Parker handles these affairs for me” suppose that if you can tell they are, then they really aren’t. What always counts most, however, The last and greatest festival of all is the music, and it pleases me greatly to know Was Uncle Seabird’s acid test and ball that some of these tunes still set people humming They say one row of people passed a joint along. From Yasgur’s Farm clear to Zabriskie Point Uncle Seabird was an action man Crosby Stills and Clapton, Young and Nash He knew the scene before the scene began Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Johnny Cash The first cat to drop acid in the Haight They all backed Yoko Ono while she ... sang He understood the lyrics of The Weight And Elvis Presley read from R D Laing When Fillmore West was still a carousel When Uncle Seabird wheeled onto the stage And the chick to know was Luria Cantrell He was crowding eighty-seven years of age Uncle Seabird tried hard to be nice “We are stardust, we are ... (croak)” he cried When Berry Gordy asked him for advice And the children yelled his name out as he died Uncle Seabird, Uncle Seabird had the word PA: What we couldn’t know at the time was that Uncle Seabird, Uncle Seabird had the word this track would be the last one on my last album Uncle Seabird, Uncle Seabird led the herd for more than twenty years, until the ever-to-be- thanked Steve Birkill put me on the web and it all When Uncle Seabird wrote for Rolling Stone 1. Rain-Wheels 3.23 The lyric is full of desolate envy but he turned it started up again, and so to end with a small into a rabble-rouser, which was only proper. The A generation felt much less alone Recorded on 15th June 1974, plus later overdubs unresolved ambiguity doesn’t seem altogether song had revolution in its veins. His footloose odyssey went so far back inappropriate, and as if at Robert Graves’s CJ: Nowadays the narrator would be trying to get He recalled not having heard of Kerouac careless comma, The storm has dumped a mirror in the street into Notting Hill, not out of it, and the girl would He represented youth in all its force A Jaguar goes by like the fastest MTB in all the be driving a Beamer runabout rather than a 4.2 For evolution has to take its course All songs published by Bucks Music Group Ltd, fleet Jag. It was a lot of car, the 4.2, so almost When the children queued to hear the Grateful except “Crazy Over You” published by Redwood The girl at the wheel is food for heroes certainly it belonged to a rich boyfriend. The way Dead Music Ltd/Campbell Connelly & Co Ltd. Her hubs full of haloes are strobing like a finger neon looked when reflected in a wet street was His wheelchair glittered somewhere up ahead dialling zeroes something I first noticed in Sydney when I was a kid. There is less neon today: digital lighting has She has to get home to the Vale of Health taken over, and it doesn’t have the same glow. She has to get out of Notting Hill Those wire wheels would have strobed only to a Would she care for us cripples if she could? 30 camera lens, not to the unaided human eye, but I Does her throbbing four-point-two shyly beat for 3 was taking liberties. Pete was taking them too. me and you beneath the hood?

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And back to her nest in amongst the Yes his monicker is Lonesome A discreet little concert to push the album into the wealth But he’s never on his ownsome stores Where the rain falls warm and the As he rides that strawberry roansome I’ll be so damned humble I can only just bear the winds don’t chill On the stage his baritonesome’s applause Her Firestones go trailing spray Like Godzilla on the phonesome If it all pans out I’ll hardly even have to sing They spin, they grip, they whip away Lettin’ out a happy groansome Just stand looking delicate ten feet in front of Through trembling reflections of the After eatin’ blood and bonesome Carole King That’s a million-dollar moansome lights of intersections I-D with the emphasis on the I And his monicker is Lonesome And the brightly flourished crayon of E and that means the spotlight falls on me Lonesome Levis Lane the neon ... I-D-entity crisis rock, I’m just so fragile 13. Sheer Quivering Genius 2.44 I-D-entity crisis rock, please call me Ishmael 2. Sessionman's Blues 4.25 (featuring James Paler) I-D-entity crisis rock Recorded on 21st June 1974, plus Recorded on 12th May 1975 at Morgan Studios Oh no – not the stigmata again! later overdubs PA: The object of this bit of gratuitous derision is 14. 3.59 PA: When I was making these Uncle Sea-Bird also, like Leonard Cohen, another worthy survivor, (in memoriam Ralph J. Gleason) albums at Morgan Studios in the of course, so I guess we needn’t feel too badly early 1970s, the lounge area was a about the consequences of our mercilessness. Recorded on 6th March 1975 at Rockfield rendezvous point at any time of the Studio CJ: James Taylor deserved better than this and day for musicians coming and going made the money to prove it, but I never forgave PA: between sessions, and it was the Another America-from-the-outside song, him for telling Rolling Stone magazine that he same at studios all over London. The America as seen through the pages of Rolling had been to bed with Joni Mitchell. I never did. muso in the song is no exaggeration. Stone magazine. Uncle Sea-Bird is a composite, These guys would work at least My sweet little sister has come up with another LP of course, a kind of counter-cultural guru with three sessions a day, every day, People might think she’s more sensitive even than elements of Ralph J. Gleason, Timothy Leary, turning up with little or no idea of me Wavy Gravy, and just about everyone else on the The Jag is shedding tears along the airflow what they’d be asked to play, playing it brilliantly, I suppose I’m gonna have to start workin’ against Magic Bus. And its plum-coloured lustre is sobbing like the hardly ever getting a credit, never getting to play the clock Once these records began to be placed deep end of the rainbow their own music. That kind – and quantity – of Produce another heap of identity crisis rock under the filter of websearching, all the references began to be pinned down, but Luria She has to get home to the Vale of Health session work has now pretty much dried up I-D with the emphasis on the I completely, making this song another historical Cantrell managed to elude everybody; I think the She has to get out of Notting Hill I-D-entity crisis rock best suggestion anyone came up with was that And back to her nest in amongst the wealth curiosity. Ironically, it wasn’t at an album session that I need six more songs about starin’ out into space she was a misprint for Luria Castell who had Why pretend our fortunes touch her heart? Clive wrote this lyric. Capital Radio, the With those alien stars burnin’ holes on my been associated with the Family Dogg in San The supermarket windows have shivered in the commercial music radio station in London at that sensitive face Francisco. street and come apart time, had a Saturday late-night show with live Then another six cuts about starin’ down into my CJ: Luria Cantrell was indeed an inadvertent The girl in the E-type cares for no-one music. Clive was there talking to the host, Sara soul invention. I trusted my memory, which in those Her Firestones go trailing spray through trembling Ward, and to phoners-in, and in between I was And the critics’ll call it the future of rock ‘n’ roll days was far less fallible than it is now. It wasn’t reflections of the neon singing and playing with the guys in the band I’d I-D with the emphasis on the I strange, just depressing, that the hippy era 4 She has to get home to the Vale of Health been touring with, each of them confined in his E and that means the spotlight falls on me produced so many gurus. Hippiedom was 29 She has to get out of Notting Hill own acoustic box of screens. Clive wrote the lyric I-D-entity crisis rock American democracy in extremis, and, as

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But to me you’re just Nyaargh, that’s what you are Lonesome Levis, Lonesome Levis, Lonesome during the course of the show, and read it out at A single run through and I’ve got the whole solo I got better things to do than hang around you the Levis Lane the end, as I remember. by heart livelong day Now he’s been called a ravin’ fascist by the The thing about ‘doublin’ on baritone’ at the I’ve got the sessionman’s blues I got better things to do than think about you the communists and blacks end, is a reference to the fact that if, as a The squattin’ in a booth alone livelong day But the truth is he’s an independent man musician, you’re asked to bring and play a Isolated microphone blues second instrument on the session you’re entitled There are things at home that need attending to And it kinda disappoints him he gets no relief on I’ve got the sessionman’s blues to 25% extra on your fee, so doubling sessions Like the alabaster statue I’m carving of you tax I’m booked up a lifetime ahead are always specially welcome. In practice, tenor I’ve got better things to do, believe me Buyin’ guided missiles for the Ku Klux Klan I get a sessionman’s news sax doubling on baritone is a slightly unusual Than hang around you The voice on the blower just said His noble teeth are gritted into pretzels from the combination, but never mind, it gave me an They want me to work on the afternoon after I’m pain excuse to book the great Ronnie Ross, who’d 12. 4.14 dead Lonesome Levis Lane Of heels so high he’s standin’ on his toes long been a hero. Recorded on 5th March 1975 at Rockﬁeld But a tang of bovine ordure still comes twangin’ I’ve got the sessionman’s blues CJ: I always did love the saxophones, although I Studio through his nose The squattin’ in a booth alone still get them mixed up. I have the excuse that And his monicker is Lonesome Levis Lane Isolated microphone most of the session-men sax players will double PA: I’ll never understand why Neil Campbell Doublin’ on baritone blues wasn’t snapped up by Nashville producers after Now Hitler, Himmler, Göring and all them other up to cut down the bills, so when you hearing this, regardless of the arguably less than reds look through the window from the sympathetic view of country musicians so They never understood the power of a song control-booth you might suddenly notice exuberantly expressed in the lyric. But the truth is If you want to plant a crazy notion in a million that your hero’s instrument has suddenly they probably never heard it. Besides, I feel sure screamin’ heads doubled in size, if you’ll pardon the that Neil, having been snapped up, would have Just spell it out and make ‘em sing along phrase. When Pete performs this song snapped himself down again. No it wouldn’t shift the needle if you tried to weigh on stage, he often gets a laugh on the last stanza. That laugh pleases me CJ: I myself continued to wear jeans well beyond his brain exceedingly, because it means that the the signal to cease, which is when the But he passes for a thinker in his art audience, despite itself, is enjoying the measurement of the waist exceeds the He can shoot a cornball slogan like a bullet up the neatness with which the Grim Reaper measurement of the leg. chart And his monicker is Lonesome Levis Lane has joined the picture. Now down in Nashville lives a man who makes a I’ve got the sessionman’s blues million bucks a week Now if you’re drivin’ down the turnpike tune to station KKK I played on three albums today Singin’ country music like it should be sung You’ll hear that Nashville drone come slidin’ I paid a sessionman’s dues He don’t sound too impressive if you only hear him through I played what they told me to play speak It’s just as fresh as fallin’ cowplop and as true as Then I climbed in my Rover 3-Litre and But when he sings his vocal chords are full of Old Dog Trey motored away dung That sentimental splurge is all for you I’ve got the sessionman’s blues His hawkish eyes are hooded, not with sun but In the concrete ﬁelds of Nashville they’ve grown The squattin’ in a booth alone blues from the strain their own John Wayne I’ve got the sessionman’s blues Of a slight myopia he won’t admit And he’s singin’ while he’s suckin’ blades of grass But I get the dots right from the start His thighs are well-developed from a lifetime The sphincter of a heifer don’t exude more warmth I drink a sessionman’s booze 28 kickin’ shit and class But my tenor blows what’s on the And his monicker is Lonesome Levis Lane And his monicker is Lonesome Levis Lane chart

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Like a saint on the fire reason. I should have thought about it longer, and Like a guru’s funeral pyre later on I would have. Just a blur I got better things to do Thoughts occur Than hang around you the livelong day In a slur I got better things to do Like a fog on the bay Than think about you the livelong day Like a hog washed away There’s all my seashells from everywhere I’ve been It’s a mist There must be hundreds that need another clean But the gist I’ve got better things to do, believe me Might exist Than hang around you Like a cat on a rail I got better things to do Like the next note up the scale Than waiting for you to talk to me Count to ten I got better things to do Pause and then Than dying for you to talk to me Down again I could watch King Kong for the whole afternoon Like a poet in a loft Or a late-night re-run of Destination Moon Like a sherbet growing soft I got better things to do, believe me Easy now Than hang around you You’ve been a wow Take a bow Big deal, so you think you’re in demand Well do you know what you really are? 11. I've Got Better Things You’re a baby piano pretending to be grand To Do 3.29 And all I want is a table near the band Recorded on 6th March 1975 at Rockfield So you can hear me go “Nyaargh!” Studio Have a cigar forwards on to the master multitrack. Got that? I got better things to do 3. I See The Joker 5.07 PA: OK, I admit it: it was stretching things a bit to Simple really. Than waiting for you to notice me Recorded on 4th July 1974, plus later overdubs include this one – a very early effort, and not I got better things to do really a jokey song at all. In any case, listening to PA: Clive was becoming bolder in sometimes CJ: When The Godfather became a hit, Than yelling at you to look at me handing me lyrics where the verses didn’t always gangsters became heroes, but I never thought it again now after all this time, I think I got it I got books of crosswords that are only half filled have exactly the same shape or length. What that that way. With typical solipsism I always put seriously wrong musically. I was always perhaps in meant here was that when I get to ‘I cut the pack myself in the leading role as the top guy whose too ready to take a lament and turn it into a howl, I could fill in the rest and fill the first half in again and see the Joker’ at the end of each verse, I get button-men, instructed to eliminate everybody, and this time I should probably have gone in the there each time by a slightly different musical might have missed one out. I made a mistake in reverse direction. There’s actually a sweet, sad I’ve got better things to do, believe me route. the wording: “cross-wires” should have been song here trying to get out. Than hang around you The reversed guitar echo was Roger “cross-hairs”. But otherwise I think the CJ: Actually there was hit song trying to get in, OK, so you’re heading for the top Quested’s idea. In those dear pre-digital days of vocabulary checks out, and there can be no but I undercooked the development sections of But with me it won’t get you far yore, the 16-track tape had to be physically doubt about how Pete’s driving melody – power the lyric. Saying you don’t care when you They’ve put your features on toothpaste, powder 6 reversed, the guitar track copied backwards with turning to paranoia – multiplies the obviously do is a standard strategy, but the minor soap and scent 27 its echo, and the new track then re-copied atmospherics. tactics need to be unpredictable for that very Your name in lights and your footprints in cement

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10. Doom From A Room 1.36 wake up when I heard two perfect lines: “There’s Mornings now I breakfast in the tower We do the journey different every day a funeral in the mirror/ And it’s stopping at your Then travel thirty floors to the garage Today we hit the garment district first (featuring Leonard Conman) face.” Jesus, I thought: where did he get that? So, My sons are with me even underground Then double back and take the boulevard Recorded on 12th May 1975 at Morgan Studios in about another twenty years, I was ready for the With nothing but our gun-cars all around And as we drive I don’t know which is worst easy, loping majesty of “Everybody Knows”. There PA: I think that both Clive and I have come a long From anything but nuclear attack To know he’ll come but not to know the way isn’t a lyricist alive who doesn’t long to get hit by way around toward Uncle Len’s side since we That place is safe, but when I cut the pack I see To know he’ll make a play but not know how a line like “A thousand kisses deep.” The old did this. He’s also still at it, triumphantly, which the Joker Is he somewhere out there setting up the gun? moaner’s really got the secret, and it’s good to continues to be a great comfort and an I cut the pack and see the Joker Is this headache from his crosswires on my brow? know that the universal adulation in which he now inspiration. The forecourt is crawling with our boys There’s no way, not a crevice, not a crack basks, unlike the money he made on his long That he can reach me, but when I cut the pack I CJ: I resisted Leonard Cohen’s droning charms A heavy weapon rides in every car road, can’t be stolen away from him by some My Cadillac’s a safe-deposit box see the Joker for a long time (I still think “Bird On A Wire” is bastard who will rot in hell. I cut the pack and see the Joker strictly for the bird in question) but I started to With plastic armour in the top and sides Solid like a strongroom in Fort Knox And all along the parkway into town 4. National Steel 5.14 We’re covered for a mile front and back Recorded on 19th June 1974, plus later By Family cars, but when I cut the pack I see the overdubs Joker I cut the pack and see the Joker PA: Clive’s lyric only slightly romanticises the true story of how I acquired the guitar. The music Who is this guy and why does he want me? shop used to be in Camden Passage in Islington, This city has been ours since Christ knows when not far from where Clive and I shared a big old At first from booze and girls and junk, and then house with a bunch of mates, in the days just Legitimate, from rents and industry before every house in Islington found itself The Chief of Police is ours to buy and sell smartly done up and out of reach for the likes of The DA and the Mayor are ours as well us. My National is an authentic early 1930s There’s no-one left to fight, the enemy model. They were made for volume in the days Are dead and gone, or just some juicehead black before guitars were electrified, and it still sure is Loose with a knife, but when I cut the pack I see loud. the Joker The usual way to play this kind of guitar is I cut the pack and see the Joker with an open tuning, i.e. tuning the strings so that The cops are checking each incoming flight they make a chord without you having to place For solo hitmen with an urge to die your fingers on the frets at all, which makes it No-one gets in here by day or night much more suitable for playing with a metal or Without I don’t know who they are and why glass slide (a bottleneck). But on this song I I’m in the clear, at barely fifty-five stayed with standard guitar tuning and played One of the most respected men alive mostly standard guitar chords, except that I use Some blubber here and there, but nothing slack the slide on the little finger of my left hand, I’m right on top, but when I cut the pack I see the exploiting the three-note chords that are available Joker naturally on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th, or on the 1st, I cut the pack and see the Joker 2nd and 3rd strings. 7

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I remember Roger recorded this with five And from many a sad railroad, mine or mill microphones: one for the guitar, one for my vocal, Lonnie Johnson’s bitter tears are in there still one on each side for larger stereo ambiance, and Be certain, said the man, of who you are one for my foot tapping. There are dead men still alive in that guitar CJ: When Pete brought the National home I took one look at it and sat down to write before he Back there the next morning half demented by even started playing it. I had never heard the desire snap of broken bracken in the frost: only For that storybook assemblage of heavy plate and imagined it. Years later, filming in Kentucky, I wire heard it, and it filled my mind with the cold music I sold half the things I valued but I’ll never count of this song, of which I am very fond. It was the the cost last time I ever wrote about a specific instrument, While I can pick a note like broken bracken in the and once again, as with the first time, it was a frost guitar. But the National is a guitar like no other. And I hear those fabled names becoming real For one thing, if any performer tried to smash it at Every time I feel the weight or weigh the feel the end of a concert, he would get about the Of the vanished years inside my National Steel same results as if he had swung a refrigerator. Shining in the window a guitar that wasn’t wood 5. Nothing Left To Say 3.29 It was looking like a silver coin from when they still Recorded on 2nd July 1974, plus later overdubs were good The man who kept the music shop was pleased to PA: This is one I now wish I’d perhaps given a bit let me play more instrumental space, a bit more production. Although the price was twenty times what I could On the other hand, I still quite like the empty ever pay spaces in it. Pick it up and feel the weight and weigh the feel CJ: I should hasten to say that if I have ever felt That thing is an authentic National Steel like this, it was only for a moment. For most of us, you out just with his turn of phrase. Too cool for On my chicken-bone chest in a blaze of pimples despair is an indulgence, and should be reserved school. and weals A lacy grille across the front and etchings on the for those who have good reason to think that Rattlesnake Rock, let it roll back giving up might be an option. Perhaps I was I gotta file my teeth and glue fish-scales on my Rattlesnake Rock, let if roll But the welding sealed a box not even Bukka going through a bad patch. Anyway, even with my tongue There’s a hole in my sock, there’s a slide-rule in White could crack heart in my boots, I enjoyed the paradox of I gotta grease my hair from a tub of orang-utan my soul I tuned it to an open chord, picked up the nickel waxing eloquent about the inability to speak; and dung slide Pete got some beauty into it, which it sorely I gotta stay outrageous even if I can’t stay young I foam at the mouth in spasms of sadistic rage And bottlenecked a blues that sounded cold yet needed. This was my one and only mermaid, a Rattlesnake Rock, let it roll When I’m burning a baby and eating the ashes on seemed to glide species to be avoided, unless, like Daryl Hannah Rattlesnake Rock, let if roll stage And screwing a skunk through a hole in the back The National Steel weaves a singing shroud in Splash, she has the pulchritude to offset her There’s a hole in my sock, there’s a slide-rule in of its cage Just as sure as men in winter breathe a cloud manifest drawbacks. my soul Rattlesnake Rock, let it roll, kill your mother Scrapper Blackwell, Blind Boy Fuller and Blind The breakers from the sea that kept me sane I pull open my shirt and climb into my sling-back Rattlesnake Rock, let it roll, rape your brother 8 Blake Were clean and lucid, all along the line heels There’s a hole in my sock, there’s a slide-rule in 25 Son House or any name you care to take Like shavings tumbled upward from the plane And my aerosol eczema tingles before it congeals my soul

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in circumstances previously unknown And I still can’t be sure if he was him That leave with ease the surface of the pine ice belong to him.) The slow but steady movement Pete gave the horseman – he’s riding I reasoned that if she felt tired she wouldn’t thank From Kansas to Wyoming, from Contention to When the carpenter is planing with the grain carefully, picking his way – is exactly right, I me Cheyenne It’s nothing if I woke her up and so I caught the bus back Nothing but a dream of mine think, and he’s right again to say that the order His name meant less than nothing and it didn’t home of the non-events could do with some scare a man And I have come to nothing in a way rearrangement. It pleases me that he’s still So folks didn’t worship him or fear him That leaves me with nothing left to say 8. Stranger In Town 3.34 thinking about how to make this one perfect, And I can’t remember ever going near him (featuring Ricky Fablon) Half a lifetime bending with the breeze because I count it high, among my lyrics, as an He didn’t tote a shotgun with the barrels both To buy the stuff I don’t know how to use attempt to bring a whole range of imagery to the Recorded on 6th March 1975 at Rockfield sawn off A deck of credit cards, a bunch of keys task of defining a single emotion: regret, which Studio So people didn’t hit the deck or dive behind a A station I achieved but didn’t choose is not the same thing as despair. The screws are on and no-one beats the squeeze PA: Always intended as a kind of tumbleweed-y trough Beyond the border town they call Contrition movie song – the images are all from the movies, He walked the street in silence ignored on every It’s nothing Nothing I can’t bear to lose The badlands are just boulders and mesquite after all – I persist in believing that the movie side A school of Spanish friars built the mission could yet be made. And it’s doubtful if he could even ride The sea I dreamed of closes like a vice But left because they couldn’t take the heat CJ: This is the one I like best, mainly because I never could remember how that stranger met his Parading waves are frozen into place And further on the road to Absolution conscious banality is so tricky to write: one slip death Their veils of vapour scattering like rice The mesas turn to mountains capped with snow and it sounds like actual banality. The basic idea He was absolutely senile, and with his dying breath And far below, the ultimate disgrace And the way becomes a form of execution was pinched from Graeme Garden, who in his He forgot to ask his womenfolk to kiss him A mermaid crushed to death inside the ice That only hardened travellers can go Footlights days used to knock them dead with a It’s nothing And afterwards they didn’t even miss him You can tell the horseman grieves for how he song about a dangerous gunslinger called Two- Nothing but a frightened face sinned Gun Blackhat. (“They called him Two-Gun 9. Rattlesnake Rock 2.13 6. Tenderfoot 6.19 He rides a killing trail Blackhat for he always wore two guns / And had (featuring Gladys Graveyard) a big black hat upon his head.”) After Sergio Recorded on 15th June 1974, plus later Reminded of his hard heart by the hail Leone made the monumentally dreadful Once Recorded on 5th March 1975 at Rockfield overdubs And of his folly by the chilling wind Upon A Time In The West, alas, the man with the Studio PA: I have always loved the epic movie-like By day the canyon ramparts blaze their strata fast gun got beyond ridicule, but in those days he PA: Alice Cooper was always brilliantly funny quality of this lyric. It’s not a song I’ve ever Like purple battlements he shall not pass was still in range. Something has to have the piss anyway, so any kind of a parody was going to performed much live, but it’s one of the ones I The sunlight sears the horseman like a martyr in it before you can take the piss out of it. have to go quite a long way beyond, and Clive’s play and sing for myself often. With hindsight, I The glacier’s a magnifying glass I never will remember how that stranger came to joyful exuberance still gets a laugh from people think perhaps I’d organise the verses and the And by night the clouds black out the town too young to know Alice Cooper as anything but choruses a bit differently now, and include an constellations He walked in without a swagger, got a job and a golfer. instrumental section to vary it a bit, but, hey, that While veils of icicles lock up his eyes settled down He moves by echo through the cold formations CJ: I thought the world of Alice Cooper, and was then and this is now. The place would have seemed the same without Walls of drift and ice-fall fall and rise years later I managed to get him into a TV studio CJ: The lone horseman had been done to death him as the star interviewee on my weekly show, in all media long before I wrote this lyric. But He knows he made pretence of love too often And now I can’t recall a thing about him where he tore the place up with his quiet wit. He that was part of its point: my guy is dead His deadly carelessness went on for years He didn’t wear a poncho or a gun with a filed sight was just so quick. On stage, his gift for language already. I was pleased with the sierras and the At dawn the shields on his eyes will soften And he wasn’t passing through like a freight-train was sometime hidden behind the smoke-plumes, landscapes generally, and some of the detail is And all of his regrets will be in tears 24 in the night chicken feathers and flying snake-scales of grand as good as I can do. (In one case, it’s as good But far too late to go back and be gentle 9 He rarely wore a stetson with a shadowy big brim guignol hoopla, but face to face he could wipe as Dante could do: those eyes locked up with Or say how clearly now it comes to mind

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His pride at never being sentimental and as a gentleman of the East Coast social elite Why can’t I stop perhaps a quarter of an hour then concluded she’s Was just a clever way to be unkind he presumably spoke just the same as you and ah. Because I’m a sucker, baby? not home Around him lie the stunning and the drastic Time and time again within my solitude No, because I’m a cop I thought I’d walk around the block again but soon got fed up wandering aimlessly around Where nothing but the utmost can be felt She’s there as if it were that very night And when the greatest police chief sends all on my own The temperatures will always be fantastic Her cotton gingham gown floats frail and free For Crocker, me and you Noon will never cool nor midnight melt And fabulous as petrol on the sea Then Stavros can come too It was then the thought occurred to me she might A fitting climate for one so unfeeling The sheer destruction of a beam of light Because these guys are my friends have been there Who once was so indifferent to distress When our last series ends, pussycat all the time just let the phone keep ringing on its Time and time again, time and time again own He’s goaded onward with his senses reeling And time again within my solitude When our last series ends Without the prospect of forgetfulness In order that I might be led to think that she’d Time and time and time and time again 7. Ballad Of An Upstairs gone out The golden handshake and the lightning kisses Time and time again or for some other reason wasn’t there at home Were all his for the asking in the past 2.35 There and then again I learn my loneliness Window But the subtlety and softness that he misses Now if for any reason this should prove to be the Has linked me with a life I’ll never share Recorded on 12th May 1975 at Morgan Studios For them the horseman always moved too fast case The ways that she was lovely must remain And now at last to contemplate his error PA: This was a song I’d written some time before I couldn’t help but wonder what the cause might Unnumbered as the spaces in the rain Facing the dimensions of his loss I even met Clive. In fact, I had used it as my be They fill my thoughts as sunrise floods the air He journeys where the sky meets the Sierra Footlights audition song, and joined the club on Perhaps her budgie Goldie had escaped out of the window That every man alive must one day cross Now and now alone I search my memory the strength of it. It was not long afterwards that I lacked the time to think about her then Clive suggested to me that I might like to have but in any case I thought I’d go and see 7. Time And Time Again 4.03 But now she leaves me time and time again someone else write some words for me. And so Well the truth is by the time I’d caught the bus there were are. Recorded on 10th June 1974, plus later down at the corner and arrived the time was ‘Goldie the budgie’ was a topical reference overdubs 8. Little Sammy Speedball 3.59 nearly half-past ten Recorded on 10th June 1974, plus later back in 1966. In March 1965 a golden eagle So in order that I shouldn’t seem a fool PA: I really thought this one might have overdubs called, um, Goldie escaped from Regent’s Park I went into the phone box just outside her house commercial possibilities. But then I tend to think Zoo in London and evaded recapture until he got and phoned again that, however improbably, about almost every PA: I think I’m right in saying that this was hungry twelve days later. In December he got out song, at least at the start. But even allowing triggered when Clive got hold of a dictionary of again but this time they caught him after only four Just as I dialled the number I perceived an myself to think that way is itself a sign that the drug slang and was taken by the poetry of it all. days. And so there were we are. upstairs window in her house become illumined by a light song was still – and remains – the primary thing To that extent we may not be able to guarantee CJ: When I first heard Pete sing this one in the for us. If it’s a good idea you write it anyway, and the regional consistency of every single term, but Immediately I replaced the receiver on the bracket Footlights I thought, aha! This guy knows how to and once more I stepped outside into the night only afterwards try to work out what you’re going then Little Sammy was exceptional in many ways. set a narrative to music. Instantly I formed a plan to do with it. Do not try this at home. to ensure that he would never again find the time Now I knew her mum and dad had gone to CJ: I also thought that this song had a chance to CJ: Except for the dreaded weed I knew nothing to do such a thing on his own. Scotland for the weekend and that she was in the house all on her own earn coin, although I didn’t make it easy for Pete about drugs so I needed that dictionary badly. I was going to the pictures with my girl at 7.30, when I chose a word like “time” to feature so Unfortunately I transferred nearly its whole So I presumed it was her brother’s motorbike what got there first and started queuing on my own heavily. The long “i” is the beast of all diphthongs, contents into the lyric, which has more stood By 9.15 she still had not arrived and so I walked and the Americans have an unfair advantage in vocabulary than story. But Pete made the mish- outside the gate although it’s eighteen months around the block being able to sing it unblushingly as “ah”. Still, mash bounce along, which I suppose is what since he left home 10 Cole Porter put the word “sky” on a long note Sammy did. When I think of what I can do to a and then I thought I’d telephone I felt compelled to cogitate on what was most 23 smack in the middle of the chorus of “So In Love”, packet of Extra Strong peppermints, however, it’s I let the phone keep ringing for ten minutes appropriate

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5. Ready For The Road 2.23 Blue Jeans that clutch me tighter than a pipe lucky that I never popped even one pill, or I would wrench have been dead in a week. (featuring Tesco Tex) Two guns it took a fork-lift truck to load At the age of seven years he could already boost Recorded on 6th March 1975 at Rockfield I feel like I’m standin’ in a slip-trench a short Studio But I’m gettin’ ready for the road To score himself a bluebird or a pearl PA: Rather as with Apparition in Las Vegas on For the road is the home of a troubadour He could smoke and chase the dragon, he could the album A King At Nightfall, it was the And a troubadour is what I am shoot and he could snort audience that was the fascination here rather And I travel the trail of a troubadour And build a cocktail out of boy and girl than the show. Back then, before Gram Parsons From the Empire Pool to Birmingham From any dealer’s bundle he could sniff a single bag and the like, and before country music even But my heart belongs to Tulsa and to Tucson And spot the blank, the ca-ca or the flea began to be taken seriously by audiences who For me the Alamo is à la mode The greatest living expert on the ways to mainline considered themselves ‘serious’ music fans, And just as soon as my ‘orse can get its shoes on scag country music nevertheless played to huge I’ll be ready for the road He could tie up in the dark and not OD crowds in huge venues, and sometimes these events were televised as if they were Wimbledon So they called him Little Sammy Speedball or the World Darts Championship. But the 6. Why? 2.35 Because Little Sammy Speedball took it all specially shipped-in American stars, besequinned (featuring special guest artist Telly He ate cartwheels to go up and dropped sleepers and behatted and befringed as they were, could Savarsol) to come down not hold a candle to the spectacularly accoutred Recorded on 12th May 1975 at Morgan Studios A red and rose and pink and rainbow stash British country music audience. He dynamited white stuff just to balance out the CJ: This one blows them away in concert, and for PA: OK, yes, we’ll come clean – yes, it is Clive. brown a good reason: Pete’s melody is at least as good He’s probably more embarrassed about this than And flashed on hash but never crashed on splash as any song in the genre it pillories. And I’m he needs to be. Actually, casting Clive as Telly Ripped on chalk and peaches he found time to bound to say that the verbal jokes fulfil their Savalas is not all that far-fetched: both load the Chief function. “A signet ring the size of Samson’s expatriates, of course, one from Australia and one And kissing big attained a state of grace knuckle”, in fact, is a bit better than a joke, from Karpathos, and both… yes, well, and both… His panaddicted system was tuned high beyond although perhaps a bit less than an immortal CJ: And they both sang like dying dogs. Only belief image. For rhyming “Tucson” and “shoes on”, I God, Christ and Holy Mary know how very much I A miracle of forces poised in space must apologize, because it isn’t a true rhyme, and wish that I had never done this. I blame Pete for But the day he turned eleven put the pin in the I persist in my quixotic conviction that all rhymes allowing it to happen. We might have been out to balloon should be pure, even in a song. kill a contract, but that was no excuse for murder. An aching tooth had nagged him half the night A belt with a bull’s head for a buckle If I could love you when I’m dead He took a junior aspirin crushed with honey in a High boots that satisfy the western code Then let me share your grave spoon A signet ring the size of Samson’s knuckle I wouldn’t have to shave And exploded in a blaze of heat and light And I’m gettin’ ready for the road No band-aids on my head In the ruins of his bathroom lay the candy- I’m gettin’ ready, I’ll soon be good an’ ready And if you want a lollipop coloured pills Yes I’m gettin’ ready for the road I’ll have one you can lick The universal user’s bag of sweets I’m gettin’ ready, yes I’ll soon be good an’ ready I suck them till I’m sick But nothing else remained except an echo in the 22 For the road And then I eat the stick hills And the sound of tablets bouncing in the streets PA with the National Steel

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9. Secret Drinker 3.47 have a musician on the case to suggest that you No third party, tax or M.O.T. might save words like “catachresis” or And there beside me rides my faithful Recorded on 21st June 1974, plus later “ectoplasm” until next time. squire overdubs His card’s unstamped, his trumpet PA: For once I started this one fixed with wire by kind of improvising a tune over For tomorrow I must fight Sir Valentine the woozy repeated C minor Thy hateful ravisher, the prancing 7th/F major chords until the swine melody started to try to pull it in The time has come for him to meet a different harmonic direction his fate round about ‘enchanted lands’, From me, Sir Sagramore the and then finally succeeded on second-rate ‘sure that he is real’, from where it wanders off to some The joust is in the morning, completely different places Lady Anne before it pulls itself back to the And you not there? My one and subject I’d first thought of. The only fan whole thing ends on a different This time I pray that I may stay the major chord, which might be a course hint that there’s at least the And not fall from the crane and miss merest hint of the possibility my horse some kind of future for the But Justice, God and Truth watch drinker. over me CJ: Drinking was something I At half a sovereign ringside, knew quite a lot about in my children free early days, so this lyric was a Sir Valentine the Violent is through distillation – if that’s the word Providing God comes up with I’m looking for – of solid something new experience, or at any rate liquid ‘Cause his drop-forged armour and his experience. The idea of the tungsten axe man at the bar being reflected His horse that runs on caterpillar in the bottles came to me, not tracks from the movies, but from the That showy stuff is strictly for parades poetry of Hart Crane, who was Like his rocket launcher, radar himself a sucker for the grape. So dost thou wonder I feel so uptight? and grenades I’m still proud of the way I got Times were never tougher for an errant the word “vomit” to sound Sir Valentine the Violent, supersword knight neatly placed. There’s no such Tilts with me tomorrow on the sward Oh do you wonder I feel so uptight thing as a word you can’t use, Thy just revenge lies in my hand and eye Times were never tougher 12 really, as long as it’s properly My faithful squire has bade me do or die Like rugged, man, and rougher 21 prepared for, but it helps to And put all his money on the other guy Times were never tougher for an errant knight

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And the basis of the game piece. It doesn’t really belong here at all, to be 10. Tongue-Tied 2.01 I hear the wits’ winning ways all around me Is that every song’s the same honest. It’s an album-filler on a filler album, and its Sweet nothings that ring the right bell Recorded on 2nd July 1974, plus later overdubs And when the bass booms down there silly sweetness is in danger of giving the lie to the But their ease with a phrase is beyond me Like a constipated bear rest of the enterprise. PA: We sometimes overdo the line ‘This is one of Nipped in the bud, dried in the well Breaking wind inside its lair the first songs we ever wrote,’ perhaps in an I need a gift to give her 4. 5.11 Perspiration fills your hair Errant Knight attempt to excuse ourselves for something, but That talks for me when I’m not there And the lead shrieks up here (by arrangement with Strongbow Spam) this one really is. I first recorded it (with a And explains how the poems that start out Till it fills your mind with fear Recorded on 6th March 1975 at Rockfield different title) on the first of our privately-pressed By eating my heart out That an electronic spear Studio, Monmouth LPs when we were still students. I can’t Are lost on the air Being hammered up your rear remember why out of all the unrecorded songs in Is coming out your ear PA: A flight of fancy more than a parody of our stack this one was privileged to come to the Bonus tracks: But the rhythm’s got one lick anything at all, especially musically. I probably top of the pile – perhaps just because it seemed Recorded on 12th December 1974, So flatulently slick identified too strongly with Sir Sagramour to give like a suitable end-of-album song, or perhaps strings overdubbed on 17th December 1974 It’s guaranteed to make you sick him anything other than a slightly yearning kind of because the presence of the brilliant Daryl And the drummer’s got one stick a tune, and one which has little or no connection Runswick on the sessions reminded us that he Pete Atkin – vocal, piano But he hits you like a kick with anything remotely folksy. had played the bass on that original clockwork Neil Campbell – electric guitar Dick Levens – bass guitar In the stomach from a hick CJ: recording. I was always fond of the Fairport Convention Jeff Seopardie – drums Serving ten years in the nick / Steeleye Span / Fotheringay legacy, but I CJ: This early lyric was an exercise in sustaining Strings led by Wilf Gibson And the singer is a prick couldn’t help feeling that even the divine Sandy two-syllable rhymes, which, if you get it right, is a Issued as 7” single RCA 2517 With a breath-bereaving trick Denny sometimes overdid the faerie feyness of harder trick than it looks, and if you get it wrong Of twitching like a chick the knightly narrative. Hence this tribute, which it sounds lousy. I like to think that I got away with 11. [Single Version] 3.11 Who gives her bum a flick Pete sensibly set in a less winsome mode, it, and that the falling two syllables gave Pete an I See The Joker Like a giant facial tick thereby creating a sure-fire crowd-pleaser for opportunity for some very pretty cadences; but PA: To promote the finished album I once again And you couldn’t call ‘em quick concert purposes. what strikes me now is the emotion. It was a true put together a backing band and toured what In fact they’re thicker than a brick seemed like most of the universities in the My Lady Anne your champion’s depressed one. I really did feel tongue-tied in the presence But when they all turn up the wick country. Unfortunately, despite getting great I’m not in shape to carry on the quest of beauty, and I still do. But I suppose if I hadn’t It brings the tots audiences and responses everywhere, once I have to keep my speed down to a trot felt that way I would never have become a writer, Screaming up out of their prams and cots again I suffered from being quite low on RCA’s Or lose what little armour plate I’ve got and would certainly have never have been able Black Funk Rex is the music of tomorrow to participate in this adventure with my gifted priority list for pressing the actual albums. It My screws are loose, my clamps are hanging off Say it with pride though you hear it with sorrow friend. meant that yet again we were touring like My helmet topples every time I cough gangbusters and going down pretty well, but They’re the Middle Earth between L.A. and EC4 I need new things to tell her I topple with it every time I charge there were no records in the shops. And your middle ear has never suffered like this That won’t seem so awkwardly shy I’ve gotta get this suit to a garage The folks – I use the word in the George W. before I’m pretending to be strong and silent Bush sense (anyone remember him?) – at RCA Oh do you wonder I feel so uptight So hard that it’s violent went through the motions of contrition, but by the 3. I'm Crazy Over You 2.09 Times were never tougher for an errant knight And plainly a lie Recorded on 12th May 1975 at Morgan Studios time we found out what had happened it was all My faithful steed is the joke of Joyous Gard I need new words to fight with too late. Their response to our frustration was to PA: The eminent historian Hugh Brogan was a And sensitive withal he takes it hard That win me far more than a smile suggest that we put out a single to try to member of my college, and it was from his 1930s His forward gears are shot, and what is worse A sentence that glitters and dances recapture some momentum. Since there seemed 20 78rpm record by the Trix Sisters that I learned He’s too slow for my safety in reverse For my steely glances to be no obvious candidate from the album itself, 13 this one, and I used to do it as a sort of party So there we go, my faithful steed and me Miss out by a mile and since I See The Joker had undergone a bit of

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a performance evolution in The way my arms around you touch the centre of intended to constitute a much wider insult. These the course of playing it my being days, thanks to the post-music activities of the nightly on tour, we decided As I step inside the marshland of your mind now all but sainted Ozzy Osbourne, everyone to record it again. Makes me weak inside my senses like a dog hit knows Black Sabbath. But it’s the second I tried to add to its by a diesel component of the title who perhaps truly deserve chances of some airplay by And more alone than Milton goin’ blind the oblivion that seems to be their fate (pending, cutting it to three (instead of And I know I need to lose you if I ever want to find sod’s law, an imminent revival of interest) – yes, five) verses and giving it you hands up all fans of Grand Funk Railroad. They some choppy, bass-heavy ‘Cause the poet’s way is finished from the start were huge. Honestly, kids, they were huge. strings. In the end the single And I feel a palpitation kinda flutter in my CJ: The permanent living death of popular music didn’t make a lot of forehead arrived in the form of the full-throttle noisemakers, difference, but it did get into As I think the problem over in my heart and they have never gone away: they just keep John Peel’s list of his Yes I guess I’ll always never know the question to on being reborn in different bodies. I hated the favourite records of the stuff and still do. In fact I hate all musicians who year, so it wasn’t a your answer If I can’t be doin’ wrong by feelin’ right feel the urge to move around on stage for any complete waste of time. reason except to snatch a quick toilet break. If And it was fun to do. But I’m really lookin’ forward to how you’ll be lookin’ backward Roy Orbison just stood there, why does anyone else have to run about? Why do they even have 12. Sessionman’s When I’m walkin’ with you sideways through the night to make faces? Why doesn’t that Gallagher Blues person just sing into the microphone instead of [Single Version] 4.40 I can keep this kind of writin’ goin’ more or less crouching under it and snarling up into it, as if it forever were the bottom of a mounted policeman’s PA: Recorded quickly as But I can’t undo destruction when it’s gone horse? Why? the B side for the single. I can only think of you and what you cost me in We could have simply used hotel bills I wanna talk about some guys with glitter on their the album version, I As I settle down to dream of movin’ on eyes and cute lips suppose, which would have It’s an all-purpose noise that’s already put the If I’ve never longed to love you less than now you’ll had the mighty benefit of boys in the chips know the reason Ronnie Ross’s baritone, but If you’re talkin’ about pre-teen sex your talkin’ Is because my whole desire is to sing this was at least a small ‘bout Black Funk Rex And everything I’m sayin’ is the mirror of your gesture of added value. The beauty Black Funk Rex are cuddly as rabbits last time these tracks were As it hovers like a vulture on the wing They drone about elves and they drool about reissued, the album version hobbits was included on the CD by 2. 3.25 But their warmed-over whimsicality hardly inhibits mistake, so this is the first Black Funk Rex Their wide repertoire of nauseating habits time this particular version (featuring Marc Boloc) has been heard on an Recorded on 5th March 1975 at Rockfield And when the amplifiers roar album of any kind. Studio They sound like fairies waging atomic war PA: It’s a little unfortunate and unfair that my own They got one riff to their name 14 All songs published by musical laziness meant that this has tended to be Which isn’t to their shame 19 Bucks Music Group Ltd. tagged as a T. Rex parody when it was always ‘Cause the secret of their fame

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DISC TWO Historical Research Consultant – Dr. Hugh Brogan Live Libel Co-ordination and critical path analyst – AN ALBUM OF MUSICAL TRIBUTES TO Simon Crocker INSUFFICIENTLY NEGLECTED Feasibilty Research Consultant – CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS ASSEMBLED Rudolph Regulus BY CLIVE JAMES AND PETE ATKIN RCA RS 1013, 1975 Front cover illustration – Trog Design – John Cross Art direction – Pat Doyle Pete Atkin – vocals, pianos, acoustic guitars Neil Campbell – electric guitars, Spanish guitars Dick Levens – bass guitar Jeff Seopardie – drums, percussion Daryl Runswick – double bass Rock Bottom (Gaye Brown, Diane Langton and Annabel Leventon) – backing vocals Strings led by John Mayer PA: If this album seems like a bit of a divergence from what had become our expected path, that’s because it was. That might have been a good thing if we’d been testing ourselves and our audience in a creative way, but I have to be honest and say that wasn’t it. It’s not that I’m 1. Song For Rita 3.50 I still sing this one from time to time and I am ashamed of it, mind, even though there may be always rather moved by the extent to which I find (featuring Griff Gostuffyerself) those who think I should be, but it’s not really the myself moved by its, um, movement. Lyrics – Clive James album I most wanted to be making. Recorded on 5th March 1975 at Rockfield CJ: Parody is a dangerous form for the song- Music – Pete Atkin Most of these songs were quick gags, of the Studio writer, because it can so easily sound like envy. (except “I’m Crazy Over You” by Al Sherman and moment, never meant to be lingered over. I found PA: The ‘Rita’ bit of the title is the bit that has But I really think that Kris Kristofferson spent a lot Al Lewis, and “Ballad Of An Upstairs Window” it handy to slip the odd one into a set to vary the aged least well. (I mean the reference rather than of time on the verge of the ludicrous. I loved “Me words and music by Pete Atkin) mood, to keep the audience never quite sure of the actual person – I haven’t knowingly seen the and Bobby McGee”, especially when Janis Joplin what to expect next. They were often requested Produced and arranged by Pete Atkin actual person in thirty years or more and I sang it, but some of KK’s more philosophical by people who’d been at previous gigs, perhaps Recorded at Rockfield Studios, Monmouth in wouldn’t presume.) Kris Kristofferson was in the meanderings struck me as the maxims of a Kung not least because they weren’t on any of the March 1975, engineer – Dave Charles, process of revolutionising the writing of country Fu martial arts master learning to play the guitar. records. and at Morgan Studios, Willesden in May 1975, songs and making them in many cases much In live performances, however, the audience When The Road Of Silk came out I played a engineer – Roger Quested more philosophically intricate, and it was his always went for this one, and I suppose it was promotional tour with a backing band, only to Remixed at Morgan Studios, engineer – Roger duetting with Rita Coolidge one evening on The because they respected the victim enough to discover afterwards that there had been no Quested 18 Old Grey Whistle Test that inspired, if that’s the know his lyrics well. I would have welcomed the albums in the shops. The initial pressing had sold 15 right word, this song. same fate for myself, no question. out in the first week, and because the LP

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pressing plant in County Durham had received a around the UK and once all around Having now been there myself, I honestly can’t large and urgent order to records by artists Australia and in Hong Kong. blame him. understandably much higher on RCA’s priority list So here it is, a curiosity. There CJ: Sometimes I think that if I had a gateway to than I was, it took a month or so before my album are one or two of these songs that I the past I would go back and consign all my could be re-pressed, by which time the tour was still sing sometimes even now, so I’d allegedly “funny” lyrics to the scrapheap. A song over. The record company undertook most better not be too snootily dismissive. isn’t a song unless you want to hear it twice, and seriously to make sure this didn’t happen next Besides, there’s some terrifically who wants to hear even the most successful joke time, and I duly went off on tour with my new resourceful and enjoyable playing, again? Noel Coward wouldn’t have been himself band to promote Secret Drinker only to discover particularly from Neil Campbell, a truly if he hadn’t written things like “Mad Dogs and afterwards that they had pressed barely half the outstanding guitarist who came to Englishmen”, but I still think the chief value of his number they said they would, all of which had London from Skye to try his hand at patter songs was that their demanding intricacies been sold in the first couple of weeks, and once the music business thing. But I guess got him into shape for writing the graceful again we were touring with nothing in the shops. it was a case you you-can-take-the- simplicities of “Mad About the Boy”. For a long I was contracted to deliver one more album boy-out-of-Skye, etc., because the last time I thought the only redeeming feature of Live to RCA, but this was all seriously discouraging. I heard he’d decided to head back. Libel was the fabulous caricature that Trog kindly We had a whole stack of new songs waiting for produced for the cover, but now, when I the next album, but I didn’t want to risk another go back to it, I can see that there are repetition of the whole sad story, and I decided to some decent numbers. Invariably they give them what was frankly a contractual are the ones that Pete has used in fulfilment album, and to save the new songs for concert ever since, when he wants to what I hoped – expected, even – would be a new break up a sequence of the heavy stuff. contract with a new record company. When we toured the album you could As it turned out, those songs had to wait tell, from the kind of applause, which another twenty years or so before they got a songs were being rewarded for their proper airing, because I blithely assumed that craft. The tour, incidentally, was the first we’d built enough of a reputation to mean I’d time I went on stage unencumbered by a have little trouble in moving labels. But by then it guys in the band, and we all went off to script, and when I work solo in the was 1976, and although we had never sounded record them at the legendary Rockfield theatre today, I am still using what I found very much like the rest of what was going on Studios in Monmouthshire, with the strings out then. around us, we now sounded so little like the rest and backing vocals and such, together with Pete Atkin and Clive James, of what was going on around us that I might as the mixing, done back at Morgan a few January 2009 well have been singing Rudy Vallee’s greatest weeks later. hits to the accompaniment of Manuel and his To promote the album, instead of NB: The original gatefold sleeve of “Live Music of the Mountains for all the interest I could touring with a band, Clive and I decided to Libel” included a liner note for each song. drum up from record companies who without put together a two-man show – Clive mostly In order to include in this booklet all of exception had only one thing on their collective talking, me mostly singing – and we did I Pete and Clive’s 2009 annotations as well mind: punk. But I’m getting way ahead of myself think 28 dates in 31 days mainly around the as the lyrics and photos and ephemera here. universities again. We couldn’t have that they have kindly supplied, it has So what became Live Libel seemed like a guessed – and didn’t – that twenty three proved impossible to reprint the 1975 16 reasonable idea at the time. I had been playing years later we’d try the same trick, and notes. However they can be found at 17 several of the songs already on tour with the indeed to go on and do it three times http://www.peteatkin.com/libel.htm

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20 13 EDSD 2029 PA LL&SD booklet 29/1/09 15:12 Page 24

12 21 EDSD 2029 PA LL&SD booklet 29/1/09 15:12 Page 22

22 11 EDSD 2029 PA LL&SD booklet 29/1/09 15:12 Page 20

10 23 EDSD 2029 PA LL&SD booklet 29/1/09 15:11 Page 18

24 9 EDSD 2029 PA LL&SD booklet 29/1/09 15:11 Page 16

8 25 EDSD 2029 PA LL&SD booklet 29/1/09 15:11 Page 14

26 7 EDSD 2029 PA LL&SD booklet 29/1/09 15:11 Page 12

6 27 EDSD 2029 PA LL&SD booklet 29/1/09 15:11 Page 10

28 5 EDSD 2029 PA LL&SD booklet 29/1/09 15:11 Page 8

4 29 EDSD 2029 PA LL&SD booklet 29/1/09 15:11 Page 6

30 3 EDSD 2029 PA LL&SD booklet 29/1/09 15:11 Page 4

2 31 EDSD 2029 PA LL&SD booklet 29/1/09 15:11 Page 2

EDSD 2029 The Songs Of PETE ATKIN&CLIVE JAMES

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